Steven,

Regarding Wodehouse - I like just about everything that I've ever read by him. I love Blandings Castle and Lord Emsworth and company. I can't help but adore Bertie Wooster and his coterie of associates.
Have you read a short story titled "Honeysuckle Cottage"? It's about a hard boiled crime writer who takes a romantic little cottage to finish his latest book - and the cottage begins to affect his style - much to his chagrin - slowly transforming his detective style to romantic mush...very funny.

I like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.
Old favourites are the BBC sit-coms from the 60's and 70's - too many to name off the top of my head, but Steptoe and Son comes to mind.
Loved Dave Allen, Father Ted and Blackadder.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are a hoot.

and lastly, but certainly not least, my special favourite, Rumpole.

Steven,

Just thinking of Wodehouse again and his mastery of the mirth-inducing metaphor and simile.

I found this piece by Wodehouse from 1971 in The New Yorker" when he was 90 years-old - about his craft.

"....but I have always been alive to the fact that I am not one of the really big shots. Like Jeeves, I know my place, and that place is down at the far end of the table among the scurvy knaves and scullions.
I go in for what is known in the trade as "light writing", and those who do that--humourists they are sometimes called--are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at. When I tell you in recent edition of "The New Yorker" I was referred to as "that burbling pixie", you will see how far the evil has spread.
These things take their toll. You can't go calling a man a burbling pixie without lowering his morale. He frets. He refuses to eat his cereal. He goes about with his hands in his pockets and his lower lip jutting out, kicking stones. The next thing you know, he is writing thoughtful novels analysing social conditions, and you are short another humourist....In order to be a humourist, you must see the world out of focus, and today, when the world really is out of focus, people insist that you see it straight...."

Lexi,

Niven's "The Moon is a Balloon" is superb.

Poirot,

Thank you for that beautiful Wodehouse quote.

I think that to be a humourist, or to have a sense of humour even, you need to see the out of focus world out of focus which means you're actually seeing it in focus.

To use a more modern paradigm, you need to escape the matrix.

A Fish Called Wanda ( the old woman & dogs scene is a killer)
Men In Black
Lawrence Leung’s [ Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable –ABC TV ]
Big Bang Theory
Shaun Micallef [Talkin About My Generation]
Chevy Chase
Woody Allen
Oscar Wilde
Wayne Swan & Milhouse Van Houten ( It’s hard to tell them apart !)
Paul Howes [AWU Chief] ( and, I laugh even more when I hear that some have designated him labor’s man of the future.)

Loved Australia You're Standing In it. Especially the cartoon of the Melbourne trams turning into submarines, sailing north and invading Sydney. (and I'm from Sydney originally!)

Dear pelican,

You said; "There are some side splitting funny bits in the IT Crowd and some episodes which leave one a bit flat. The disabled toilet episode and the Russian Concentration Camp smoking episode had me crying with laughter."

Amen to that. They were very, very funny.

I have been finding how much my favorites like Black Adder have dated as I introduce them to my teenagers, though my eldest has taken a shine to the Young Ones and Red Dwarf. Yes Minister has yet to get their attention but it was my favorite. Black Books has them hooked and we are off to see Dylan Moran next month. Should be good.